Month: January 2022

Reliable daycare options have become more important than ever for families around the world, especially given school closures, lockdowns, and other COVID-19 responses. Many of these policies have meant that parents have had to seek out daycare options or put their careers on hold to be with children while they learn remotely from home. 

However, that isn’t the only reason why daycare is such a fast-growing industry today. As more families have had both parents entering the workforce, finding quality daycare options has become increasingly important. In fact, the size of the total daycare market in the US is estimated to be worth approximately $54.9 billion. The size of the daycare industry to expected to grow about 2.2% in 2022, and some experts predict an even larger rate of growth thanks to government investment and social trends. 

Given the growth of the industry, forward-thinking daycare centers are exploring all sorts of tools and technologies that allow them to provide better care and stand out from the competition. Software solutions that allow daycare centers to process payments, keep children safe, and schedule daycare activities have emerged as powerful tools to enable what is often known as smartcare in the industry. The term refers to childcare that is empowered through technology and modernization. 

Considering the explosive potential of daycare management software, it’s no surprise that many investors are chomping at the bit to reap the rewards and future profits associated with the growth in the space. Let’s explore a few reasons why daycare management is the next big industry for profit growth in the industry. 

Payment Processing

One of the most promising features of daycare management software is its ability to process the payments of parents and customers on behalf of daycare facilities. That’s a big deal since billing is one of the most time-consuming parts of running a daycare center. Moreover, it’s important to protect parents’ security when processing payments, which is why daycare management software provides tools to process payments.

Daycare managers can set up recurring payments so that parents are charged at regular intervals and receive receipts for their transactions by email, automating the billing process and streamlining customer service efforts. These transactions can be automatically logged by the software and uploaded or synced with accounting software to make bookkeeping a synch. 

Different daycare management software will offer payment processing options such as Electronic Fund Transfer (ETF) and ACH transfers. Some daycare management software can be programmed to use third-party payment processors through their Application Programming Interface (API.) This represents an alternative for companies that want to use independent payment processors that could be more secure. 

Most daycare management software will also feature a visual dashboard or interface that administrators can use to keep track of all relevant billing information. This allows owners to keep their financial information organized and easily accessible online. 

Affordable Costs for Daycare Centers

Most daycare management software is quite affordable and many even offer a freemium model in which users only pay for certain upgraded features. Other software solutions bill based on the number of customers that are serviced through the software. 

The majority of daycare management software simply charges a flat, monthly fee to daycare providers that can easily fit within their quarterly budgets. This is a relief for many parents who are coping with the high costs of raising a child.

More premium daycare management options such as Procare don’t list their pricing information and instead require users to submit a price request form on their website. However, to give you some context, Procare users can expect a tiered pricing plan that ranges from $69 per month on the low end to $109 per month on the higher end. 

Yet other daycare management software offers price breakdowns by child, with Kindertales, for example, charging $2 per child per month for their standard plan and $4 per child per month for their premium plan. 

More sophisticated systems such as Procare also offer hardware solutions that allow for the daycare center to accept payments through a physical POS system. The affordability of daycare management systems could allow many centers to cut their costs and offer lower prices to parents, which is a pressing need in many states. 

Regardless of the budget and goals of each daycare provider, they will be able to find a daycare management system that fits within their budget, which is why these powerful software solutions have such a potential for growth and profit. 

Enhancing Child Safety

Another important contribution that daycare management systems are making is to keep children safe, supported, and motivated. Many solutions offer the ability to schedule activities or curriculum for children, and some even have child monitoring capacities. 

Software solutions like Brightwheel are well-known for providing detailed monitoring tools such as video recordings and photos of children that can be sent to parents upon request. Food tracking procedures can also be configured to give parents and care centers greater control over childrens’ diets and make sure they are eating healthy. 

Activity reports that detail childrens’ activities in real-time can be generated for parents, as can daily reports that cover all of the things the child did that day. This provides parents a greater sense of control and security when it comes to their children’s daily life. 

Facilitating Developmental Goals and Daycare Administration

Many daycare management systems offer distance learning options that give parents lesson plans which allow them to continue helping their children learn after they get home from daycare. These features can ensure continuity in children’s learning and developmental goals and provide the resources they need to complete homework assignments. It is no surprise, therefore, that some of the best daycare centers are making use of this innovative software. 

Daycare management software can even collect data on children’s developmental or learning progress which can be used internally to refine daycare policies, and sent to parents. 

Daycare centers can also use software to accomplish day-to-day management tasks. This includes running payroll to make sure that the staff is paid securely and on time. The software can be configured to allow only certain staff members access to specific software features, which ensures security. 

Daycare management systems can even help with the difficult task of hiring enough workers to run a daycare. Staff can also log their hours into the software which makes it easy to organize how much work has been completed by each staff member each week. 

Daycare management software can even play a role in facilitating increased sales and onboarding for daycare centers. Parents can enroll their children electronically through the software, as well as submit any required paperwork or documentation. This documentation can be stored internally for easy access at a later point.  

Sandra Chiu works as Director at LadyBug & Friends Daycare and Preschool.

As an employer, it’s your responsibility to keep all of your employees safe and happy in the workplace. Hiring an employment lawyer can make your job much easier by reducing the time you need to spend on the legal side of running a business.

Unfortunately, there are many things that can go wrong when you are an employer. Whether it is an employee getting injured while at work or a client filing a claim against you, you may find yourself in an unfavorable position.

It’s not just employers that can benefit from hiring an employment attorney. Employees may also find themselves in a situation where legal action is required.

For example, if you have experienced sexual harassment at work and you want to file a claim against another employee for their behavior, your lawyer can help with this.

So, whether you’re an employer or an employee, it can be extremely beneficial to hire somebody who knows employment law in great detail. They can help in resolving any problems or concerns that you have in the workplace.

Here are some of the benefits of hiring an employment lawyer.

Understanding the Fine Print

Legal contracts are often long and unenjoyable to read. You might be tempted to skip a lot of the small print but this can lead you to miss important information about your employment contract.

A professional employment attorney will be trained to read legal documents in great detail and identify any potential loopholes or errors. Getting them to read through your papers before signing anything will prevent you from ending up in an unfair contract.

On the other hand, employers may wish to hire an employment attorney to read through their contracts and ensure that they are providing a safe and fair deal for their employees.

Guidance Through Unfairly Dismissed

If you have recently been fired and you cannot identify a valid reason for this dismissal, you can hire an employment lawyer to file an unfair dissmisal claim against your employer.

Often, employers will try to persuade their employees to drop their claims. This can add extra worry to an already stressful situation. Your attorney will liaise with your previous employer so that you don’t have to.

They will be able to negotiate a compensation deal with your employer to cover the financial losses caused by your dismissal. This process may require court hearings and your lawyer can fight your case on your behalf to maximize your chances of a successful claim.

Helping You Comply With the Law

The law can be complicated when you are an employer or an employee. There is a huge number of different legislations and employment labor laws, all of which are forever changing.

If you are worried about whether you are complying with all of the latest regulations, hiring an employment lawyer will reduce your worries. They will know all of the up-to-date employee legislation in detail so you can rest assured knowing that you aren’t breaking the law.

Once the exclusive domain of nerds and technologists, cryptocurrency has now found a mainstream audience and user base. Fears of inflation, ongoing quantitative easing, and aggressive stimulus spending have spurred investors’ interest in alternative stores of value such as Bitcoin. 

Being the world’s leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin offered a plethora of novel financial technologies to the market. It pioneered blockchain infrastructure, a system of digital checks and balances that allow for secure and verifiable peer-to-peer transactions. Transactions on the blockchain are verified through a proof of work protocol that leverages a group of miners who use a distributed set of computational systems that certify transactions by solving cryptographic problems.

The significance of these innovations lies in the fact that they enable a set of digital financial services without the need for a centralized authority such as a bank or government. It allows users to securely transfer Bitcoin to others without a bank to certify and settle the transaction. Instead, these transactions and Bitcoin users’ account balances are logged in a public ledger that is created and validated through the proof of work protocol.

These innovations have earned the attention of technologists and high-profile investors such as Mark Cuban. Even institutional investors have taken an interest in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and long-term store of value. 

Cuban has also taken an interest in a variety of alternative cryptocurrencies, often referred to as altcoins. He has controversially been supportive of Dogecoin, a meme-based cryptocurrency that features the playful image of a Shiba Inu dog. Although Dogecoin was originally created as a satirical cryptocurrency, it has since achieved viral popularity and renewed interest.

High-profile business people including Mark Cuban and Elon Musk have been optimistic about Dogecoin’s prospects because it is a common introductory cryptocurrency for individuals that are new to crypto. Its viral, accessible nature makes it a great introduction to cryptocurrencies for the uninitiated.

Mark Cuban has been supportive of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and a variety of other cryptocurrency technologies. There is one cryptocurrency in particular that Cuban has shown a great deal of interest in for its unique features and applications. That cryptocurrency is called Ethereum. 

Now is probably the part where you’re wondering should I buy Bitcoin cash? The answer is yes according to Crypto Dispensers, depending on your purposes. While Bitcoin uses technology to enable secure transactions without a centralized authority such as a bank, it does not offer users the ability to create and execute contracts. This could be a drawback for people that are transferring large amounts of money as part of a business arrangement and want that agreement to be in writing. In many cases, there are conditions that must be met by both parties before a transaction takes place, and in the case of Bitcoin, a bank would still be necessary to secure this in a contract.

That’s where Ethereum comes in. Ethereum utilizes some of the core innovations of Bitcoin, including the blockchain and proof of work protocol, to offer a technological way to ensure contracts. Often referred to as smart contracts, Ethereum offers a system of checks and balances that enforce contracts between different parties. 

Much like Bitcoin, Ethereum features a public ledger that records all transactions, and this ledger is distributed across the network, meaning that many users store a copy of it so that it can’t be manipulated. Moreover, new digital wallets and crypto exchange platforms such as Coinbase have made it easier than ever to buy Ether. A number of Coinbase alternatives and Bitcoin ATMs have also emerged that simplify the process even further.

Mark Cuban is bullish on the future of Ethereum because it can be used to create smart contracts that facilitate commerce between individuals and businesses. Moreover, these smart contracts need not be affiliated with a centralized authority such as a bank or government in order to be secure and enforceable. 

Investors like Cuban believe that the technology behind Ethereum will fuel the creation of an entire ecosystem of decentralized finance, or defi, products. Indeed, the defi industry is one of the fastest-growing in the world, and defi enthusiasts believe that decentralizing finance will empower consumers, reduce transaction costs, and limit centralized power structures. 

The technology behind Ethereum also gives rise to the possibility of creating Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) which has created a great deal of excitement among Ethereum experts. The idea of a DAO is that an entire organization or corporation could be formed and exist in a completely automated way through the use of a large set of smart contracts.

Modern-day corporations and organizations exist through a series of agreements or contracts between individuals and businesses. 

Employees have contracts with employers. Investors have contracts with businesses they invest in. Even businesses themselves have contacts with other businesses that they are partnering with, acquiring, or merging with. 

This complex set of agreements and contracts can produce a great deal of friction within organizations and are often costly to create and enforce. Parties that breach these agreements must be held accountable which can be an expensive endeavor, often involving attorneys and legal costs.

Ethereum could in theory automate the creation and enforcement of these agreements through the use of smart contracts. These contracts can be certified and secured through technology, and the consequences of breaking them could be ensured programmatically. 

In other words, specific clauses can be written into a smart contract that defines what will happen if the contract is breached by either party. The software can then be written to detect if a contract is breached and then automatically executes code that carries out the breach of contract clause. In this sense, the contract is secured by a series of programs rather than a third party such as the government or the court system. 

Moreover, once smart contract software is created, it can later be modified or reused in future contracts by other parties. This greatly reduces the administrative and bureaucratic costs of running a business and adjudicating legal disputes.

Considering its substantial upsides, it’s no wonder that Mark Cuban and other celebrity investors see the promise in Ethereum. Indeed, for those that believe in the future of smart contracts and decentralized finance, it represents a fascinating and promising investment.